10 Must-Have Apps For Traveling to China



China is a fascinating and special place for many foreign travelers. It has exotic Chinese culture, bizarre foods, unique customs and many interesting people to meet. There are so many mysterious things to explore there. However you may be daunted by something such as language barrier and China’s web censorship, which limit your ability to obtain information through Internet. To tackle these challenges we made a list of essential mobile apps for china travel and hope they will make your China trip much easier. This list includes some very useful apps including language translation, giving directions, taxis, and best VPN to unlock websites.




1
Express VPN
Virtual Private Networks, or VPN for short, is the most important app that you should use when travel to China (No need to use VPN if you travel to Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan). In Mainland China many world famous sites, e.g., Google, Youtube, Gmail, and social media platforms, e.g., Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are all blocked. Since you may have to use any of these apps as you main way of keeping in touch with friends and family. In order to access these services either for sharing your experience or avoiding any worry or confusion of your friends and family, you need have a reliable VPN service to unlock these blocked services. I recommend ExperssVPN in mainland China. It is the best and fastest VPN that keeps working well in China in recent years. Besides EexpressVPN is the only VPN provider whose official website is unblocked in China. As for the price it is not the cheapest one but its performance, speed, easy-to-use mobile app (available on iPhone, iPad, and Android) and good customer support make it your best choice when travelling to China.




2
Pleco
Pleco is an awesome Chinese-English translation app that helps you crack the language barrier in China. You can “draw” Chinese character on screen and it will immediately look up the words accurately (This feature is free for Android users but costs some money for iOS users). One of this app’s cool features is its OCR (optical character recognition) function. You can use your camera to scan characters like a menu. it will soon identify these characters and translate them into English. Pleco also supports text-to-audio function and you can imitate the pronunciation and intonation to speak to a native Chinese people to see if he/she can understand it. That will be an interesting thing to do in China.




3
Google Maps or Gaode Maps
Google Map is the best choice if you travel to China. It is completely available in both English and Chinese and can navigate exactly to the place you are looking for. But google-powered service is often disturbed and blocked by “Great FireWall of China.” In most situations you can not access its map service. So you should consider another awesome free map app named “高德地图”. This is the best mapping app in China with up-to-date database and accurate directions guide. The app is in Chinese only.




4
Uber
Uber’s service has expanded to 21 big cities in China including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu. Its price is less than 40% of a nomal taxi price and drivers are friendlier than taxi drivers. Uber’s operation interface is simple and easy to use and it track driver’s location in real time. Uber has both English version and Chinese version. In big cities like Shanghai it even provides English-speaking drivers to help those who can’t use local taxi apps.




5
China Trains
China has developed train system and many major cities have been liked by fast trains. It just takes several hours to travel from city to city, and more importantly it saves your money than traveling by air. But China’s official train booking system only provides Chinese version interface, so it is a great challenge for foreign tourists to book train tickets. The “China Trains” app is designed to help English speakers to check train plan and book train tickets around the country. When type in cities and traveling date, it will display available train seats in real time and you can send a train booking request to order your train tickets. This app also has a Q&A column which allows users to ask any questions about train travel in China.




6
TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is a must-have app when travel to China. There are millions of real travelers’ reviews and photos which will help you choose the best place to visit. Users can also ask questions about your trip and will get answered very soon. With just several easy clicks, users can locate the the nearby hotels, restaurants, and fun things to do in the city.




7
Kayak
Kayak is a very useful price comparison app which helps you save your bucks. When searching for a flight, hotel or car rental, it will show prices from hundreds of travel sites and help you find the best deal. Kayak also tracks real time flight status and offers airport info. It is avaialbe on Android, iPhone and Windows system.




8
Skype
Skype is a useful app that you can use to stay connected with your family and friends. Skype is not blocked in China and works well at present. Buy some credits, you can make phone calls with extremely cheap prices to most countries around the world.




9
MoWeather
MoWeather is the English version app of China’s most popular FREE weather app “Moji Tianqi 墨迹天气”. It can show real-time weather and air quality for all places in China. It automatically displays the weather conditions in your place including: Humidity, Wind, Air quality index, Pressure, Sunrise, Sunset and more. It also offers 24-hour, 6-day weather forecasts which help you redesign your trip and know what to wear for the following days’ trip.




10
Bing Browser
The NO.1 search engine Google has been blocked in China and if you want to do English search, you have to choose Bing browser instead. If you download it in China, you may see Chinese version, you can switch to English version in its settings or click the option “只显示英语” in the searching results.
 
Key words: Useful APP in China, Travel in China, Life in China 
 
Next Remember !! Don't Overstaying your visa on the Chinese mainland
Back


Twitter HTSIC

评论

发表评论

热门博文

Daily Mandarin - Buddhism

图片
佛教 - Fójiào - Buddhism The 9 Most Common Myths about Buddhism  Perhaps no major faith tradition is more subject to misunderstanding than Buddhism. The world’s second-oldest religious belief system has undergone plenty of changes in 2,500 years and admittedly much Buddhist dogma is intended to be kept away from casual observers. The inner teachings that relate to meditation and mindfulness, for example, are typically revealed to adherents who pursue the path for at least a few years. Even so, modern culture has fostered countless myths and flat-out misstatements about Buddhism, primarily relating to teachings about afterlife and reincarnation. What are the big myths that float around modern culture, mainly in the West? In no particular order, they are: Myth: All Buddhists are vegetarians Maybe the only thing that lives forever is this myth! Especially in the U.S., non-Buddhists are shocked and startled whenever they hear otherwise. Although man...
阅读全文

Movies that mirror your life in China

图片
Indie Movie Reviews: One Expat Story, One Dongguan Debut This is Sanlitun  (2013) When it came across my desktop, I thought, “Finally, someone has done it.” Bar talk in every expat community, as far as I can tell, is fraught with drink-fueled epiphanies of bringing ‘our’ story to the silver screen. And when I saw the trailer for This Is Sanlitun and its credentials of international film festival appearances, I thought, “This could be funny.” Self-proclaimed China expert Frank, conducts himself with many characteristics of Pinocchio’s Honest John. The comedy-driven mockumentary catalogs the adventure and missteps of Gary, a dopey, wide-eyed underdog that seems new to his sense of optimism. Introducing himself and the plot to the camera, nothing can stop him. And then, on his first step toward rebuilding his life and finding international trading success, he stops off to reunite with his estranged Chinese ex-wife and pre-pubescent, “mixed” son. His family has moved, but t...
阅读全文

Shanghai's best Halloween parties 2017

图片
Halloween's here! When you're done sinking your fangs into all the candy, and you're dressed-up as something genuinely ghoulish, it's time to get your freak on. Here's a rundown of the best Halloween parties this year. Freaky Disco In a nutshell  A scarily good time at Roxie. What to wear  A Count Dragula outfit. The Stanky Boyz host what's sure to be a lively night at Roxie with band The Nasty Revue performing live, Lindberg, Sean 2.0 and Levzep on the decks, plus Temple of Boom 'vinyl threesome', a drag show from The Dragonettes and quite probably loads more besides.  Roxie  Second Floor, 359 Kangding Lu, near Shaanxi Bei Lu. Sat 28. 6pm-late. 50RMB Dagu Lu Halloween In a nutshell  Kids trick or treating followed by a pub crawl (for the adults) along Dagu Lu. What to wear  This is one to get properly costumed up for. Not sure how you represent 'the ghost of Yongkang Lu' in costume form, but give...
阅读全文

Shanghai's 9 Most Intense Matcha Desserts

图片
Green tea has been around since the Chinese discovered its 'awakening' effects helped them meditate back in the Tang dynasty (609-705), but it was the Zen Buddist sect of 12th Century Japan who refined it into the bright green powder you see today. They did this by growing it in the shade to produce a theanine-rich, caffeinated tea and then powdering it.  Along the way, Japanese patissiers and confectioners discovered it tastes absolutely fucking delicious in cakes, ice cream, mochi, Swiss rolls, Napoleons – pretty much everything. So when it comes to matcha desserts, you're either a part of the niche that loves them, or you haven't been enlightened yet...  Here's a list of the most matcha-y desserts you'll find in Shanghai, from one matchaphile to another. 1. Tea Funny's Matcha Cookie Cups With Yongkang Lu having sobered up after the Xuhui Mayor staged an intervention last year, the street has cleaned up its act with a host of teetotal cafés ...
阅读全文

Remember !! Don't Overstaying your visa on the Chinese mainland

图片
Don’t overstay your visa. This seems obvious, and yet we hear enough stories of people doing this that it bears repeating that this is not a good idea at all. Here’s why. The basics Although the punishments described below vary in severity, overstaying your visa at all may jeopardize any future visa applications. In most cases, you will get a written warning saying that you cannot overstay your visa again within a given period of time. There is no “grace period” Unfortunately, the rule that allowed for a ten-day grace period is no longer in operation in China. That means that you may be liable to pay a fine from the first day that you overstay your visa. I f you find yourself in this situation while trying to exit China the border officials’ reaction may be anything from giving you a telling off and letting you go, to asking a few questions, to even denying you passage until you pay a fine If you’re not on your way out of the country when you discover ...
阅读全文